Here’s what you need to know this week — in 30 seconds or less:

• AI & city services — We’re training city employees to use AI to save time and serve you better.
• Powering future growth — San Jose and PG&E struck an agreement that holds both parties accountable for delivering on jobs and affordability. 
• Internships — Applications are now open for neighborhood outreach, communications, data, and policy fall internships in the Mayor’s Office.

Keep scrolling for all the data and details.

Dear Neighbor,

When I ran for Mayor, I argued that making City Hall work requires embracing new tools and methods. AI has rapidly emerged as one of the most powerful tools available and we’re aggressively finding ways of leveraging its potential to make your city government more efficient and effective.

In past newsletters, we’ve talked about various AI pilots the city is running that are already showing results: 20% faster buses on all of our major routes, earlier detection of potholes and other on-street hazards that enables DOT to respond faster, better evidence and faster apprehension of criminal suspects, more accurate and less expensive real-time language translation in more languages at more public meetings and events, just to name a few examples.

Today I want to share what we’re doing to ensure AI supports our most valuable asset: our people. AI is rapidly changing the nature of work across many sectors of the economy. At City Hall, we believe that AI can help our workforce be happier and more productive in their roles because it can automate the slow, repetitive and less interesting elements of certain jobs while empowering the individual to spend more time on the kinds of tasks that humans are uniquely well-suited for. But we can’t take for granted that AI will simply augment workers’ productivity without replacing them, which is why we’re intentionally investing in our workers’ AI knowledge and skills.

We call this employee training “upskilling” and, thanks to the expert insight and collaboration of our partners at San Jose State University, our IT team is now equipped with a 10-week skill-building curriculum that teaches employees how to use new tools like GPTs (stands for “generative pre-trained transformer,” which is essentially a set of natural language-based algorithms that can process and analyze human language to generate trends, insights, etc.) to automate various elements of their work.

To put it simply, we’re teaching our workforce how to use AI safely and effectively, giving them back hours of work time to grant permits faster, process transactions faster, respond to more constituent requests, or however success is measured in their specific role.

We currently offer two tracks: AI Upskilling and Data Upskilling. The AI Upskilling Track, which is geared toward a general office workforce, focuses on customized training for specific departmental projects and has resulted in a 10-20% percent efficiency gain — over an hour saved per day — for the initial cohort of employees who have completed the course. 

The Data Upskilling Track is designed for more technical roles, such as data analysts in various departments, and provides training in tools like Power BI, Tableau, SQL, Python, and GIS. Participants have saved over 200 staff hours and helped nine departments handle inquiries more efficiently, while saving $50,000 by reducing consulting costs and over 100 hours annually in internal data collaboration.

One recent success comes from an upskilling graduate in the Department of Transportation, Andrea Arjona, who used a custom AI assistant to secure a $12 million federal grant to install 14 fast chargers and 109 Level 2 chargers for electric vehicles at 12 city-owned locations.

When the grant was abruptly suspended in early 2025 due to changes in federal funding, Andrea leveraged her custom GPT to quickly pivot by finding and applying for another relevant grant just before the deadline, and secured a $2.5 million grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for 60 new EV chargers across six community centers and libraries in underserved neighborhoods — all in a fraction of the time it would have taken her just a year or two earlier.

Another success story comes from Stephen Liang, an analyst at the city’s Information Technology department, who created a custom AI assistant to analyze and categorize unstructured text in the “Other Issues” section of 311 service reports. This tool automatically identifies recurring themes, such as “Junk Removal” and “Water Issues,” saving over 500 staff hours annually by streamlining the process of categorizing and addressing resident concerns.

In Silicon Valley fashion, we’re one of the first major U.S. cities to roll out AI training at this scale. So far, 80 people have gone through the two curricular tracks, and we have another 30 employees signed up for the fall. By 2026 we want to expand to 1,000 employees — about 15% of our workforce. People seek purpose in their work, and automating monotonous tasks gives each of us the opportunity to do more meaningful work. Because no one joins public service to get bogged down in bureaucracy — we’re here to solve problems for our community. AI gives us a whole new set of capabilities for doing so.

Another success story comes from Stephen Liang, an analyst at the city’s Information Technology department, who created a custom AI assistant to analyze and categorize unstructured text in the “Other Issues” section of 311 service reports. This tool automatically identifies recurring themes, such as “Junk Removal” and “Water Issues,” saving over 500 staff hours annually by streamlining the process of categorizing and addressing resident concerns.

In Silicon Valley fashion, we’re one of the first major U.S. cities to roll out AI training at this scale. So far, 80 people have gone through the two curricular tracks, and we have another 30 employees signed up for the fall. By 2026 we want to expand to 1,000 employees — about 15% of our workforce. People seek purpose in their work, and automating monotonous tasks gives each of us the opportunity to do more meaningful work. Because no one joins public service to get bogged down in bureaucracy — we’re here to solve problems for our community. AI gives us a whole new set of capabilities for doing so.

Sincerely,